There was nothing he wanted to veto, though he did have corrections and advice - especially when it came to the names of complex chemicals and the details of his love of science and technology. So a few million people have already “met” my son in print. Remember that the New York Times had him splashed over the front page and a whole two-page spread in a story, “Navigating Love and Autism,” about his relationship with his girlfriend, who also has Asperger’s. Q: How did your son feel about having his life written about in your new book? Did he have veto power?Ī: Cubby has mixed feelings, I guess. To my amazement, “Look Me in the Eye” proved to be a big deal to readers who had family members on the autism spectrum, and their comments and questions made me understand that I need to put my very best quality of thought into anything I write. That book also showed me the responsibility authors have when they write words that go beyond simple entertainment. I was invited to speak all over the world, and to participate in cutting-edge research by neuroscientists, which will be the subject of my next book.

Temple Grandin and I were two of the first people to show that you could be successful because of something others saw as a disability. Q: Did writing your first book change your life?Ī: Writing “Look Me in the Eye” put me out there in public view as a person with Asperger’s who’d done OK. Here, he talks about the grave responsibility of the writer, the trickiness of writing about one’s family, and how autism might make him a better writer. Robison will be the Talk of the Stacks speaker Thursday at the Central Library in downtown Minneapolis. His latest book (“Raising Cubby: A Father and Son’s Adventures With Asperger’s, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives”) explores his relationship with his son, who also has Asperger’s. His memoir, “Look Me in the Eye,” published in 2007, was a New York Times bestseller. But that “social disability” of his youth remained, and it wasn’t until he was 40 that he got a diagnosis: Asperger’s syndrome.Ĭoming, as he did, from a writing family (his mother is poet Margaret Robison his brother is memoirist Augusten Burroughs), Robison began writing about living with Asperger’s.

Robison Service, an auto business in Springfield, Mass., that specializes in customizing and restoring luxury cars. His genius lay in all things mechanical over the years, he designed special-effects sound gear for the rock band Kiss, and video games for a toy company. “I dropped out of high school in the 10th grade.” “My social disability was dismissed as laziness, or deliberate misbehavior,” he says on his website. As a child, John Elder Robison found it very difficult to make friends.

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